


Hold me and tell me this is not the end

by RoseMeister



Series: Change [2]
Category: Warcraft - All Media Types, World of Warcraft
Genre: F/F, NSFW, more soft than anything, oh no... theres only one bath ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°), seducing jaina into healthier work habits? its more likely than you think
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-01
Updated: 2018-11-01
Packaged: 2019-08-14 03:25:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16485086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoseMeister/pseuds/RoseMeister
Summary: Vereesa brushes a hand along the back of her neck, and she shivers, gripping her quill tighter as Vereesa lays her other hand on one side of Jaina’s face, tilts it towards her. Away from her desk. “Vereesa, I’m…” Vereesa leans in, her lips gentle but insistent, stealing Jaina’s words before they can begin to form within her mind. “You are very distracting.”





	Hold me and tell me this is not the end

Jaina’s been staring down at a particularly acidic note sent to her from the Greymane estate, various failed attempts at a reply scattered across her desk. She is sorely tempted to simply screw up the damned note altogether, or to send the old wolf a letter filled with nothing but her purest, most honest thoughts. Then, perhaps, they would have something more interesting to discuss at the next Alliance meeting beyond arguing over tariffs and the minutiae of border divisions.

And yet. Yet. She has duties now, ones that go far beyond her own whims.

She almost doesn’t hear Vereesa slip into her room, but her door’s aged hinges betray her presence. It has become far too easy to guess; her brother is hardly the subtle type and her mother would surely have begun to speak by now. She smiles without turning around, and pretends not to have noticed, continues scribbling down a drafted letter. She almost has an idea this time, a way to twist her words to remain polite but firm, when a pair of arms circles around her shoulders, warm lips brushing against her cheek.

Jaina rests her quill for now, raises her hand to touch one of Vereesa’s, closes her eyes. “Finally managed to escape from Dalaran? I was so sure you wouldn’t make it tonight.”

Vereesa laughs, her breath ghosting across Jaina’s skin. “You know what work is like sometimes. Little more than paperwork and politics.” Her arms squeeze tighter. “Are you done for the night?”

Her hand drops down to her desk, and she starts playing with her quill, rolling it back and forth between her fingers. “Not quite. There’s- I’ve been stuck for a moment. Genn sent me a letter.”

“Did he?” Vereesa releases her, moves towards her writing desk to pick up the letter in question, scanning it quickly. Her face twists into a grimace as her ears twitch, and she drops the letter face down. “It’s a wonder that man still has any allies left, the way he acts.”

“I know. But I still need to be somewhat polite to him. We can’t risk starting another war.”

Vereesa hums lightly, leans back on her desk, studies her for a moment. “How long have you been working on this Jaina?”

She doesn’t want to answer. Even just considering the words makes her feel slightly guilty. Makes her feel like she has broken some unspoken promise between them. Disappointed Vereesa somehow. Vereesa stands, moves closer. “How long Jaina?”

“I…. I’ll be done with it in an hour or two. Then I’ll rest.”

Vereesa brushes a hand along the back of her neck, and she shivers, gripping her quill tighter as Vereesa lays her other hand on one side of Jaina’s face, tilts it towards her. Away from her desk. “Vereesa, I’m…” Vereesa leans in, her lips gentle but insistent, stealing Jaina’s words before they can begin to form within her mind. “You are very distracting.”

“I’m trying to be.”

“You’re succeeding.”

Jaina hasn’t let go of her pen yet, still caught between desires and obligations. Caught, or unwilling to decide. Hard to tell, really.

Vereesa’s hands slip to her shoulders, and while the action is familiar, the intent in Vereesa’s eyes isn’t, and it leaves her mouth dry.  She rubs her thumbs in small circles, watching her quietly. Temptation given flesh. Maybe she’s right after all, and Jaina should just step away. Give herself room to breathe, to exist.

But no. she shouldn’t. If she lets herself get stuck a step behind, she will only continue to be buried further and further in work. Never ending.

“I noticed something new about the Proudmoore manor a couple days ago.” Vereesa starts, her tone almost suspiciously casual. “Your bathtub is quite large.”

“It’s a relic from the old days. We’ve had it for years.”

Vereesa’s smile is wide enough to show off a hint of her fangs. “It’s far too large for one person, don’t you think?”

Oh. Oh. Now that has Jaina torn. “I really…” Her quill isn’t even in her hand anymore, Vereesa is smiling at her, and that cursed letter is the furthest thing from her mind as Jaina leans in again, drowns herself within a deeper kiss. Fuck it. The letter can wait. “Alright. You win.”

She lets herself be led away, enjoys the giddiness twisting through her stomach, making her feel like a girl half her age.

The tub lays where it always has. Familiar, but all of a sudden it carries a different weight to her mind. Familiar to sight, known to her touch, but somehow new and strange, almost terrifying. When she was younger it was a rich copper, but now age has painted it a subtler green. For a second, she wishes she could still see it as it was when she was a child, and not have to stand aside it filled with a strange anxiety.

She’s thankful, at least, that they don’t have to call anyone to fill it. Summoning enough water to fill it, stirring it into a comfortable temperature, is a simple enough task. Easier, she thinks, than explaining why she should want a bath drawn at this hour.

She feels Vereesa wrap her arms about her again, the familiar blending into the new as she pulls her closer, soft and warm at her back. Too warm. Her eyes shoot open.

“Have you undressed already?” She whispers.

Vereesa presses a kiss to her neck, smiles against her skin. “Maybe you are just slow.”

“Maybe you should hurry me along then.”

Vereesa laughs softly, reaches around her to the top button of her shirt, pauses for a second. “May I?” she asks, breath warm against Jaina’s neck. She shivers a little, but nods, feeling strange as the first button falls loose, then the next, until her shirts hanging open, and she’s feeling nervous all over again, only less pleasant this time. They've danced on a tightrope for so long, hung between lovers and friends, and even now that they have dived off entirely she’s still not certain how to reconcile the change to herself.

And the shirt- There are scars there, written memories of much worse times, from training mishaps to all the sorrows of the third war, to every single conflict she’s survived since.

Vereesa’s hands slow. “Are you alright?” Her words are deafening. “We don’t have to do this. I just thought…”

“It’s fine.”

“No, Jaina, really. I mean it. I don’t want this to… I don’t want to force you into anything. If you don’t want this now, or ever, it’s fine. We can go back, go… read one of your books on dry magic theory. Anything else.”

She turns around, catches Vereesa’s chin and kisses her softly, pulls away just far enough to lean their foreheads together. Breathes in slow. Let’s herself feel for a moment.

Decides she’s brave enough.

“Theramore left a bigger mark on me than you realise.” She shrugs the shirt off, lets it fall discarded to the floor. Vereesa’s staring, gone silent, but there’s enough stubbornness left in her to grab her hand, rest it on the largest scar, right underneath her breast. A large burn wrapping around one side of her ribs, mana searing it a stark white.

“Oh Jaina.” Vereesa breathes. “I had no idea.”

She’s no quite sure what to say. Too many awful things that she doesn’t want spilling out from her mouth. That not even her mother knows. That she’s never been able to make any of them fade.

That some nights she almost wishes they were worse, that she had suffered more in surviving.

Vereesa’s hand starts moving, thumb rubbing along the different texture of the burn, then moving along to trace each mark on her skin. The cluster of cuts from where an ice spell backfired on her while training. That old sword wound from the third war that still aches when the weather’s too cold. Her hands are almost too warm against bare skin, and Jaina can feel echoes of her touch remain even as she pulls her hands away, leans back up to pull her into a searing kiss. And it’s then that the nervousness fades away enough for her to remember that she’s shirtless. That Vereesa is shirtless too. That she can feel her, all of her, pressed against her. Burning hot.

Vereesa pulls away far enough to rest their foreheads together. “I wish you hadn’t been hurt like that. I wish I’d been there to stop it. But I’m glad you showed me.” Her hands have settled on Jaina’s waist, rubs tiny circles there with her thumbs. “I do mean it though. We can stop here for tonight, figure everything out later.”

There’s that. Just having her here is almost enough. They aren’t together as often as they should be, bound up by a lifetime of responsibilities and burdens. Any other night she wouldn’t trade the time with her for anything, eager for the chance to be wrapped up in the arms of her best friend turned lover. But tonight, there’s a hunger buried deep within her stomach, a restlessness pulsing beneath her skin.

“I think.” She starts, voice almost too loud for her ears. “I think I still want this. I want to try it, at least. Just… Go slow. Please.”

Vereesa presses a kiss against her jaw, murmurs quietly. “If you are sure.” She turns around, dips her hand in the water. Jaina tries not to let her eyes linger too long on the curve of her back, to focus on stripping off the last of her clothes. The nervousness has returned, electricity running up and down her spine, and she breathes in slow and steady. Tries to remind herself. That this is a choice, a desire. That Vereesa will not hate her if she backs out later. That they have time, to think, discover, feel.

She walks up to Vereesa, hugs her from behind. “You realise the point of a bath is to get in it, right?”

She laughs, and if Jaina wasn’t warm before, now she feels a breath off combusting entirely. “I’m just making sure it hasn’t frozen over while we were talking.”

“I can keep it warm all night you know.”

“Don’t offer that if you don’t mean it, Jaina.”

They slip in finally, the sudden movement sending waves that threaten to spill over the side. For a minute, it’s an awkward tangle of limbs, and Jaina can feel heat creeping up her neck from the ceaseless contact. Skin against skin, all of Vereesa laid bare for her to see. Her mind is caught, still trapped on the fence between wanting to see, to touch and know, and thinking she should look away, grant her privacy, still not convinced on all that has changed between them. Only convinced that she has not crossed some irredeemable line by how much Vereesa is laughing at their failures, at every time Jaina slips and lands red-faced on her chest.

They settle, eventually, with Vereesa’s against one end, and Jaina sitting with her back against her front. Jaina’s heartbeat has hardly begun to settle, too focused on the press of Vereesa’s chest against her back, and it only grows more erratic as Vereesa’s hands begin to trail across her body, starting with gentle touches across her stomach, until Jaina is sighing, resting her head back on her shoulder. Her hands begin to drift higher, brushing the underside of one breast, pauses for a moment until Jaina whispers “keep going.”

Vereesa must be magic, she thinks, her touch leaving trails of electricity in its wake. A lightning storm only barely contained within elven hands. She moves almost agonisingly slow, circling and building, tracing runes into Jaina’s skin. Mapping out areas long since unseen, unfelt by another. Swirls up restless energy within Jaina’s stomach, tangles up want and need until Jaina feels volatile, a stray spark off exploding entirely.

“Vereesa.” She sighs out. Her head still lays heavy on Vereesa’s shoulder, and she doesn’t want to move. Wants to stay as close as she can, wants her hands on her for hours, wants to breathe her in, her scent to always linger on her skin.

She was so literate once. Defused the threat of wars with words. Read a thousand libraries full of books. But now they have abandoned her, left her tongue searching, her mind grasping at what was once as easy as breathing. She gives up. “Please.”

Vereesa laughs softly, voice echoing so close to her ear, and relents, her hands drifting, searching downwards to the last place explored, her touch so heated Jaina’s half convinced the water will all boil out. Dips down, stays gentle, exploratory, not enough, but it still makes the air in her lungs heavy, molten. Drags a groan out from the depths of her throat.

“Vereesa.” She repeats again. All other words have been stolen away, and so she just groans again, wraps her fingers around the edge of the bathtub. Vereesa doesn’t stop moving, draws circles over and over into her skin, carving deeper each time, until finally Jaina shudders, a bolt of electricity sparking out, stealing even thought from her for a few moments. Leaves her adrift and floating, until the feel of Vereesa behind her grounds her enough to breathe again.

Vereesa’s arms have settled into an embrace around her, loose but comforting. She kisses the back of Jaina’s neck, whispers against her skin. “Are you still alright?”

She rests her hands over Vereesa’s, leans back into her. Let’s herself enjoy feeling warm, being touched, for even just a moment longer. “Much more than alright. Thank you.”

Vereesa is quiet for a few more moments, then sighs. “We should probably get out at some point, shouldn’t we?

"You know I can just keep heating the water back up. We can stay as long as we like."

Vereesa’s small laugh rumbles through her, twists the pleasant feeling in her stomach higher still. “You are so very persuasive, Jaina.”

She twists around, hands on Vereesa's shoulders as she leans in for a kiss. Jaina's hands sneak down to Vereesa’s waist, pull her closer, and part of Jaina is tempted to stay here longer. It's hard to resist with temptation warm against her lips, and yet somehow, she gathers enough of herself, draws away for long enough to whisper against Vereesa's ear.

"I’ve changed my mind. I would have liked to stay. But it's a bit too awkward for what I have in mind."

There's barely concealed delight in Vereesa’s eyes as she leans back.

"And what do you have in mind?" She asks, almost breathless.

"You'll see."

**Author's Note:**

> this was fun to write in the end, even if it ended up taking weeks to actually sit down properly and finish it lol.
> 
> Two things i really want to say:
> 
> 1\. im aware of the discrepancies with actual lore, i just think the changes are more fun
> 
> 2\. lots of people said rly nice things about the last one and in all honesty? it means a lot. so thanks to everyone that reads any of these
> 
> title from [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeVmT6z194Y)
> 
> I'm around on [tumblr](http://octopusdragon.tumblr.com/) and [twitter](https://twitter.com/AdaarHerah) if you want to say hi


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